


it won't be long

by TheSpaceCoyote



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [19]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Feels, Blood and Gore, Hurt Armitage Hux, Hurt Kylo Ren, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Major Character Injury, Possible Character Death, Rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 19:18:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19068997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: Once again, Hux has to rescue Kylo from danger. However, this time around one of them might not make it out alive.





	it won't be long

**Author's Note:**

> For some reason I just wanted to write some very gory angst, definitely more extreme than some stuff I've done before (basically, there's guts involved).
> 
> I left the ending purposefully ambiguous, because as much as I love angst, I also love recovery and happy endings. You're welcome to think however you wish!

The battle rages long into the night— at least, that’s when a particularly violent explosion rattles Hux awake.

He groans, chin tilting up as his eyes flutter open to take in his surroundings, blinking through the blood dripping from his temple. The previously intact corridor lies in ruins, torn apart by the enemy assault. The ceiling above him has collapsed in on itself, support beams shorn and melted and unable to keep much of anything stable. Through the yawning hole Hux can see the sky above, profoundly dark despite the glow of the moon. Beams of distant green and red, fire from the warring fighter pilots, occasionally streak across the star-flecked firmament.

Hux should be up there, in orbit, strutting around the bridge of the _Finalizer_ and commanding the counterattack from a distance. He should’ve escaped this whole ordeal relatively unscathed. He still doesn’t fully grasp what had possessed him to go down to the planet with Ren to personally address this pocket of Resistance fighters trying to commandeer old Imperial territory. In retrospect, he reasons it was likely a combination of exasperated duty and gut instinct that Ren might need him.

Hux cringes, biting back a hiss. He’s paying for such foolishness now, with the only feeling in his gut one of ghastly pain.

He wraps his arm around himself, hand cupping right where the throbbing intensifies in his abdomen. Blood wets his palm through a rip in his uniform, cutting him in a ragged line just below the navel.

He can tell by the size of the wound and the deep, churning agony inside of him that it’s severe. Hux can’t quite recall how he got it, not with the chaos of the initial attack obscuring his memory, but that’s the least of his concerns at the moment.

Hux’s heels grind uselessly against the floor, pushing away bits of debris. If not for the cracked wall behind him supporting his back, Hux would barely be able to sit up straight. Keeping his hand molded to the wound, Hux gropes around his belt for the emergency beacon. With his blaster missing and more blood chugging out of his wounded stomach with each labored breath, it’s his last hope for rescue. But just as his fingers close around the device, he remembers who had been striding next to him at the moment of the assault, with a smarmy retort that’d quickly died upon his lips as the blast roared through the corridor.

 _Ren_. Hux’s heart manages to beat even quicker, suddenly panicked. _Where is Ren?_

He coughs through the dust as his eyes scan his immediate surroundings, at first finding only more crumpled walls and collapsed ceiling. He wonders, through the numb swirl of his mind, if Ren had perhaps escaped the ruined base already, chopping through the opposition and trying to turn the tide of the fighting on the ground. Though Hux would resent getting left behind, at least that would mean one of the Order’s co-commanders wasn’t _completely_ out of commission.

But his heart sinks when his eyes finally fall upon a large piece of the corridor, split off from its surroundings in the explosion and collapsed atop a figure sprawled upon the ground, black cape torn and fanned about him like an inert shadow. Hux can just barely make out a blotch of pale face, streaked with vibrant red.

 _Hells_.

“Ren,” Hux tries, voice cracked and weak like he hasn’t used it in days. He sees no movement, hears no response above the din of combat. “ _Get up_.”

The meager authority in his tone fails to rouse Ren even a little. Hux’s throat and lungs are too tight to try again, pain so bad he can barely swallow. This is bad, and he knows it. They need to get out of here as quickly as possible. Ren especially—Hux has no way of knowing how badly he’s injured. If he’s even still _alive_.

The entire base suddenly shudders, causing Hux to accidentally jostle his wound. He moans at the spike of discomfort, hitting his skull against the wall behind him. Strands of hair falls against his forehead, limp with dust and sweat. Again he feels for the emergency beacon with his free hand, trembling fingers slipping around the device. Everything’s slicked in blood. Hux tries not to look down, fearing he might lose his nerve if he does.

Just as Hux manages to firmly grab the beacon the precarious slab of flooring Ren lies pinned to shifts, angling down into the gaping hole left by the blast. Hux gasps as the ground beneath him shudders, stilling for a moment until the tremors pass. Even through the intense pain, concern grasps Hux’s heart as his eyes flit over Ren’s helpless body. The debris on top of him slides a couple inches, edging towards the rift in the floor. Groans of metal support beams and crackling of stone echo all around Hux. The infrastructure won’t hold, at this rate, even if the base sustains no more damage—which seems unlikely. The Resistance is chaotic and pitiless, they won’t rest until it lies in ruins.   

Hux forces himself to think, despite the dizzying pain and distracting worry about his wound. If Ren still lives, he might not survive such a fall. Not while unconscious, presumably already injured. But the floor beneath him trembles, growing weaker by the moment. A few more jarring explosions might send it crashing through to the lower level of the base for good. Collapsing stone and durasteel shrapnel will make short work of a human body in moments.

Hux snorts weakly, the crushing cavalcade of misfortunate in this situation almost amusing. Of course he couldn’t just sit here, holding his innards in place, and wait for proper rescue. Of course, Ren had to complicate everything. Of course, it’s up to Hux to fix things and drag him out of yet another impossible ordeal.

He jabs his boot heels into the ground, searching for purchase against the buckled flooring as he tries to sit up straighter. Hux inhales, breath reedy and painful against his throat, which feels parched and gummy thanks to strain and the dust floating about. His injury twinges with each movement of his chest, but he presses his hand harder against it, hoping to staunch the blood and pain for just a little while longer.

 _Get Ren, send emergency beacon, get the hell out of here._ It shouldn’t take too long for assistance to arrive, even with the battle outside. If he can drag Ren away from the unstable portion of the floor, they’ll be safe in a matter of moments, and this incident will fade into memory to join the long list of failures for Hux to bring up whenever his co-commander starts questioning his competency.

But his need for vindication might not be enough to sustain him, even as he finds a handhold in the fissured wall behind him and manages to drag himself up. As Hux struggles to straighten his posture, he can feel something’s gone seriously wrong inside of him.

With his hand pressed more firmly against his abdomen, the extent and severity of his wound becomes acutely obvious. Blood gushes around his fingers, staining his skin and soaking the front of his uniform all the way down to the crotch of his jodhpurs. He labors through his breathing, trying to keep enough pressure on his wound while loathing the feeling of his own gashed skin and slick fluids. Hux feels slightly nauseous, shimmering colors clouding his vision. Unconsciousness pulls at him as he rises to his feet, tempting him to lie down and rest and _forget_ about the battle still raging around him.

But Ren still lies trapped beneath the heavy slab of debris, and for some reason—duty, lunacy—Hux feels compelled to go to him.  

He presses his back against the wall, inhaling shallowly. While the strength in his body wanes, adrenaline pulses through his veins and forces him not to give in just yet. After a moment of steeling himself, Hux takes a step and falters, his right knee shaky and jellied as he presses too much weight on it. He clenches his teeth, willing it to hold firm as he quickly shifts to his other foot. He starts to move at a hurried but irregular pace, trying not to spent too long on the weakened leg lest he collapse completely to the ground. If he does fall, Hux’s sure he won’t be able to get up again.

He grits his teeth, focusing on the grind to distract him from the mounting pain. Ren better thank him for this. Hux better see him get down on his _knees_ and beg forgiveness for putting his general through such an ordeal. Hux can think of more than a few ways for Ren to make it up to him. Appealing Snoke for a damned promotion on his behalf would be a good place to start. He deserves more than serving as Ren’s exalted nursemaid.  

A larger explosion rocks the base as Resistance fighters stream close overhead, spraying fire on the ground forces outside. Hux nearly loses his footing and pitches forward, landing heavily on his weak leg. He shouts through his clenched teeth, mouth filling with blood. It tastes sour, tainted with bile and acid. Hux tries to swallow it down before he chokes, body swaying as the ground beneath him quakes. The slanted piece of flooring Ren lies upon teeters, more cracks fissuring outwards. Time is quickly running out—for the both of them.

Hux breathes in a little too deeply in recovery, trying to get more air into his tight, failing lungs, but the uncontrolled exhale sends a wave of pain radiating outwards from his middle, and the pressure inside of his mangled insides abruptly lessens, messy viscera bulging outwards through the wound into Hux’s palm.

He nearly throws up. The muscles in his throat tremble, more blood lurching up from his wounded stomach. A little drool of dark red manages to slip past his lips, trailing down the jut of his chin and flecking on the cracked floor below. Hux moans, vision tilting and spinning. He can barely feel the ground beneath his boots, his entire body light and dizzy with pain.

 _Hold firm_ —the authoritative voice in his head commands, cutting through the mire. It’s the same voice Hux uses both publicly to order his troops and inwardly to keep himself in check. In times of crisis, it gives him something to latch onto and clear his mind, gives him confidence that no matter what challenges he faces, he can push through them and come out triumphant.

As his own, still-warm guts slip between his fingers, Hux isn’t so sure he _can_ push through this, he urges himself forward towards Ren nonetheless. He keeps his palm clamped tightly against his middle, holding his insides in place and stopping any more from slipping through the wound.

The distance between he and Ren is thankfully not too vast, not that it feels all that short with a yawning stomach wound and rapidly waning strength. Still Hux presses onwards, weaving a path around the larger cracks and chunks of ceiling until he gingerly steps onto the most unstable portion of the flooring where Ren lies. He moves as if on the most fragile crust of ice, aware any wrong step will send the both of them plummeting to their demises.

To Hux’s relief he finds Ren only _partially_ pinned underneath the rubble. It covers his left leg and part of his hip, surely splintering the bones underneath, but with a couple good tugs Hux _should_ be able to wrench him free. He can’t bend down far enough to hear Ren’s breathing, but the movement of the hair fallen over his face tells him he _lives_ , for now.

Hux knows he need to finish this quickly—the flooring crumbles further with each passing second, and the colors in his vision are blurring like paint dashed with water. He tenses, biting his lower lip as he pushes the innards spilling out of him _back_ into the wound with a grunt, and tentatively removes his hand. It holds—shorn flesh and tattered uniform keeping his abdomen together for this last effort.

Ren’s upper body sits half-braced against a pile of the buckled flooring, allowing Hux to reach the cloak bunched around his shoulders easier. His fingers dig into the dusty fabric, eyebrows tightly knitted as he prepares himself, counting to three a couple times and aborting the effort, before finally mustering all his strength and _hauling_ Ren up and out.

Instantly his entire body protests, pain lighting anew in his abdomen. No doubt Ren would be screaming in similar agony were he conscious, as Hux attempts to drag his injured limb out from under the twisted mass of stone and steel. He feels thankful for the lack of struggling, as he’d surely lose grip on the cloak if he had to fight him the whole way.

“ _Pfaask_ , Ren you h-heavy bastard—” Hux spits, blood and saliva collecting on his lower lip in a pinkish froth. His wound throbs from the strain, more of his insides threatening to spill back out, but he can’t dwell on that, no, not when Ren’s pinned body _finally_ starts to move—

Hux grunts as he finally pulls him completely free of the debris. The pain from the effort attempts to overwhelm him as he struggles to keep his balance, but oddly he feels almost numb to it, as if he’s already grown accustomed to its persistence. He keeps his focus entirely on Ren, tugging his body along the uneven earth as the base shudders and collapses around them.

Sweat collects on Hux’s forehead, feeling cold against his skin. He fists his hands tighter into Ren’s cloak, and they feel dull and tingly at the tips, insensate to the rough fabric. With every passing second, more blood gushes from the wound and soaks into his jacket and jodhpurs. His uniform is utterly ruined. Once he returns to the _Finalizer_ , he’ll have to discard it.

Something inside him screams to _stop_ , that Ren is hardly worth the effort, or the no doubt irreparable damage he’s doing to his body as he staggers away from the the crumbling, _widening_ hole. Sure, it’s become his unofficial duty to ensure Ren’s safety thanks to his position as Snoke’s apprentice, but Hux wouldn’t wind up suffering the blame for his death, should he fall. This is _war_. Casualties should be expected, even among the higher ranks, even among Force-wielding sorcerers.

But Hux doesn’t stop. He continues to drag Ren’s limp form along by the shoulders of his cloak. _Madness_ , he assumes, is the only thing fueling this ridiculous, futile effort now. It’s too late, he’s probably already ruined all chances for survival. His guts are going to spill out of him, all over Ren’s stupid unconscious face, he’s going to die on his feet trying to save this damned moron and then they’re _both_ going to fall through the floor, their shared tomb the caving wreck of the base.

And yet, Hux manages to pull Ren away just as the ground beneath him gives out completely, splitting and breaking off before cascading down into the floor below. With one last, agonized cry Hux puts all of his dwindling strength into _yanking_ Ren the last couple inches to safety, his limp booted toes dangling over the edge for a split second before Hux drags him the rest of the way onto solid ground.

Hux loses all feeling beneath the hips as he collapses, sagging to his side on the wrecked ground. Ren’s body slumps down beside his, no longer supported by Hux’s trembling arms. He barely possesses the strength to check on his wound, but his abdomen throbs, twisting pain burrowing deeper and deeper into his body until it’s difficult to feel anything else. Hux spits up brownish blood onto the floor, struggling to breathe through the fluid filling his throat.

It all _hurts_. But even as pain racks his body, even as his innards spill back out of the wound, Hux manages to pull the emergency beacon from his belt, sending out the signal with a shaky press of his thumb before it falls to the ground between himself and Ren. A delicate sound fills the air as it hums with a gentle red light, illuminated the other man’s pale, slack face.

Breath kisses Hux’s fingers when he manages to bring them up to Ren’s lips, tips nearly brushing against the chapped and bloodied flesh. Relief trickles into the agony burning through Hux’s body. He’s alive. He’s _still_ alive. Thank the stars for that, at least.

Somewhere up in the dance of green and red fighter fire, there’s a rescue vessel dispatching to whisk Ren back up to the _Finalizer._ He’ll be taken care of then, his wounds treated, damage to his brain assessed. Though knowing Ren, he’ll bounce back from any setbacks, resilient to a fault.

Hux isn’t worried about him any longer. He’ll be fine.

His fingers loosely card through Ren’s dirtied locks, the sensation of the silky strands against the skin exposed through the rends in his gloves starting to numb. He’d never done this before, even in the scant moments of intimacy they’d shared, but he supposes it’s better late than never. Hux takes a shuddering breath as one eye starts to slip shut, clouded with the blood of his head wound, the other starting to follow.

He always hated the metaphor of one’s life flashing before them— it’s a cloying notion in his estimation, meant to comfort those afraid of looking back from the edge death and truly feel the weight of all their empty accomplishments. But as he feels his conscious mind start to slip away, replaced by trickles of cold eating into his body, fleeting memories pipe through the fog.

_This late in the shift, the bridge was mostly emptied, staffed only with the bare minimum of officers. Hux stood side by side with Ren in front of the viewport, more relaxed than they’d be if surrounded by more people. With nothing left to occupy their time at such a calm hour, occasionally their conversation drifted to strange topics. Hux always tried to show minimal interest, hoping Ren could chalk up any replies to mere courtesy. He tended to tune him out, especially when he fell into more esoteric concepts, but abruptly something Ren said caught his interest._

_“Force spirits?” Hux interrupted, looking sidelong. Kylo tilted his chin, partially meeting his gaze._

_“Souls that continue on after death. Transcending their physical bodies yet resisting the call of the Force.”_

_Hux sniffed, eyebrows coming together. He folded his arms over his stomach, an unusually casual pose for someone of his rank._

_“You can’t expect me to believe in_ ghosts _, Ren.” He could acquiesce that his co-commander possessed some sort of metaphysical power, that much was evident in the way he fought. But the idea of an individual’s essence lingering after death was too far-fetched for Hux to accept._

_“Your belief or lack thereof is your own problem to overcome, general.”_

_“Refusing to believe anything without hard evidence has served me well thus far,” Hux replied curtly, not appreciating the slight to his intellect. He honestly wanted to dismiss the silly concept of spirits outright, shut down Ren’s cryptic superiority at the head, and perhaps finally return to his quarters and get some rest without letting his mind cloud with such improbabilities. But Ren’s sincere beliefs were occasionally fun to toy with._

_“Spirits are nothing more than a fantasy, but it would be amusing if true, wouldn’t it? In that respect, if something were to happen to me, I could continue to oversee you in the afterlife.”_

_Ren grunted, folding his arms to match Hux._

_“Force-nulls haven’t the strength to manifest after death. Only the most powerful among those actually attuned to it can resist fading into the singularity of the galaxy.”_

_“Oh. I see.” Hux pursed his lips, feeling a little sting of dejection that he quickly pushed down. He tucked his hands back behind him and stood up straighter in his boots._

_“Upon further thought, I believe I wouldn’t like to come back as a spirit anyway.” Hux gazed away from Ren, out through the viewport into the absorbing void beyond. “I’d run out of useful and interesting things to do before long. And I don’t actually want to have to continue mollycoddling you into the next life.”_

_“Fair enough, general.” Out of the corner of his eyes, Hux caught a smile on Ren’s face. “I suppose you’ll just have to stay alive.”_

A weak chuckle drifts from Hux’s lips. He can still hear the faint _chirp_ of the emergency beacon and the din of the battle but they’re fading, overcome by the steadying sound of Ren’s breaths and something else, something he can quite put his finger on. Hux's hand fall from the matted, inky locks, finally coming to rest on the bloodstained ground. He keeps his eyes open, watching, even as the light in them starts to ebb away.

Ren better make something of the life Hux has given him.

**Author's Note:**

> So do you think Hux lives, or dies?
> 
> I also apologize for the lack of new fic lately. I've been a little depressed and it's been hard to drum up motivation. Sorry :(
> 
> Hit me up on [Tumblr](http://thethespacecoyote.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heir_of_breath7/).


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